Iran Lobby

Exposing the Activities of the lobbies and appeasers of the Mullah's Dictatorship ruling Iran

Rebuilding the Global Coalition Against Iran

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Rebuilding the Global Coalition Against Iran

Rebuilding the Global Coalition Against Iran

The early days of the Trump administration have offered opponents of the Iranian regime hope that a significant change in U.S. policy towards the Islamic state will presage a similar shift in global opinion towards the mullahs in Tehran.

If we reset back to when the first talks took place over Iran’s nuclear program, the unity amongst the international community was one of the hallmarks of forcing the regime to the bargaining table in the first place.

Three consecutive American presidential administrations imposed ever growing harsh sanctions on the regime. Coupled with the sinking Iranian economy due to gross mismanagement and corruption, the regime was brought to the bargaining table in a position of weakness. The mullahs recognized this in rigging a presidential election to install Hassan Rouhani as a benevolent “moderate” face following the much-reviled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Unfortunately, instead of seizing the opportunity to effect significant changes to the regime’s conduct—especially its brutal human rights record and support for terrorism—the P5+1 group of nations, led by the Obama administration, picked the appeasement policy as its policy forward and folded like a cheap suit in caving to regime demands.

Gone were any restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program. Say goodbye to improving human rights within Iran. Forget about stemming the flow of terrorism around the world.

The opportunity to solve so many troubling problems through the single chance to make change within the Iranian regime was missed and for the past six years the world has paid a heavy price for that oversight.

While Iran lobby supporters such as the National Iranian American Council have been busy trumpeting the “wins” from the agreement, cities around the world have witnessed a much more dismal result.

Paris, Ottawa, Brussels, Sydney, Nice, Berlin, San Bernardino, Boston and Orlando are only some of the cities subjected to Islamic extremist terror, but far worse has been the whole sale slaughter committed in places such as Aleppo at the hands of Iranian regime forces.

Now with the Trump administration in place with the first encouraging signs of reversing the flow of moves aimed at appeasing the regime to one that is more confrontational and accountable, the diplomatic board has been reset with a fresh opportunity to rebuild that global coalition that was so effective before.

Reassembling a global consensus against the Iranian regime will be difficult, but it is achievable. The first promising signs have come from a Trump administration that has found prominent policy making positions for noted and vocal critics of the regime, including Mike Pompeo at the Central Intelligence Agency, Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and James Mattis as Secretary of Defense.

There has also been a unifying response from Iran’s neighbors, especially Arab nations who have been subjected to the prospect of terror attacks and outright war, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Their inclusion in any global consensus building against Iran will be vital.

Also, unlike the prior administration, the Iran lobby has been frozen out of the equation and does not have the same access it enjoyed previously into the White House and State Department. White House visitor logs are unlikely to show the National Iranian American Council’s Trita Parsi traipsing through the West Wing anymore.

Already, we have seen some possible signs of the Trump administration’s efforts to rebuild a relationship with Russia and drive a wedge between Russia and Iran. Of course, separating the two may prove unachievable, but it does set the scenario for Trump to engage in some old fashioned horse trading in which the Vladimir Putin might be induced to give up his support for Iran in exchange for something else.

An editorial by a scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, offered some thoughts on how Russia might be persuaded to change its support for Iran in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

“What, then, is the best American strategy? Iran continues its campaign against the U.S., and it won’t end so long as the regime endures. Therefore American policy must rely on dismantling the Khamenei regime as peacefully as possible, perhaps from the inside out,” the editorial writes.

“Antiregime demonstrations erupt in Iran all the time, and most experts believe the vast majority of Iranians detest Mr. Khamenei and his henchmen. With U.S. support, these millions of Iranians could topple the Islamic Republic and establish a secular government resembling those in the West,” he adds. “With the Islamic Republic gone, the Trump administration would be in a much stronger position to strike a deal with Mr. Putin. The road to Moscow runs through Tehran.”

The more troublesome part of any international coalition might be getting a unified Europe which has responded to the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran with an unbridled rush to tap Iranian markets. Who can forget the parade of EU officials leading trade delegations to Tehran in the aftermath of the deal while Iranian men, women and children were being publicly executed.

Even after the swelling in terrorist attacks and flood of refugees fleeing the Iranian-caused Syrian civil war, some European leaders still seem to be adopting a position of bowing to Iranian regime demands.

One such example was the much-criticized visit of the Swedish trade minister in which she and the female members of her delegation wore hijab coverings and met with Hassan Rouhani and an all-male team.

The irony of the photo opportunity was not lost on many human and women’s rights groups.

Considering that previous state visits to Saudi Arabia by female leaders such as Michelle Obama and German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen publicized their decisions to forgo wearing traditional head coverings, the willingness to acquiesce to Iranian demands is deeply troubling.

We can only hope that the rest of Europe realizes that winning a few dollars isn’t worth empowering more terrorism.

Laura Carnahan

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

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Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

Campaign of Disinformation by Iran Regime Revealed

Besides the much-discussed “echo chamber” that arose out of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal utilizing a network of so-called experts in academia and organizations such as the National Iranian American Council to push false narratives about the benefits of the deal, the Iranian regime itself has undertaken several initiatives to push other false and misleading narratives to defame the Iranian dissident movement.

At the center of that disinformation campaign lays the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence Services. If Hitler relied on Joseph Goebbels to help spread Nazi propaganda, the mullahs in Tehran rely on the MOIS to do the same job.

To say the MOIS is a shadowy organization is like saying grease is slippery. The MOIS was created out of the former Shah of Iran’s infamous SAVAK intelligence service which had been notorious for its brutal methods.

The mullahs opted to keep much of the former intelligence services more ruthless elements in support of the founding of their religious theocracy. As part of its first missions, it sought to infiltrate many of the democracy and opposition groups in those early years and insidiously target and even assassinate many of its leaders to help secure the mullahs’ rule.

Since then the MOIS has blazed a trail that included an infamous series of assassinations of dissident writers and intellectuals and Iranian political dissidents both inside and outside Iran. Of special importance were members of resistance groups such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran otherwise known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq.

For the MOIS and the mullahs it serves, nothing is more galling than to have fellow Iranians actively and aggressively resist their rule because as long as Iranians oppose their rule, the pathway exists for regime change and a transition to freedom and democracy.

One of the more aggressive tactics the MOIS has employed to distort the discussion about the Iranian regime’s policies has been the use of former dissident members who were either recruited or coerced into denouncing opposition movements.

Col. Wes Martin (US), former Anti-terrorism/Force Protection Officer of all Coalition forces in Iraq and a frequent news contributor, wrote about the MOIS use of disinformation in the U.S. in a piece in The Hill.

A report commissioned by the Pentagon and released by the Library of Congress provides an alarming look into the operations of Iran’s MOIS right here in the United States, he writes.

“MOIS recruited former members of the (People’s Mujahedin of Iran-PMOI, also known as MEK) in Europe and used them to launch a disinformation campaign against (PMOI),” the report reads.

Among those named in the Pentagon report are Massoud Khodabandeh and his British wife, Anne. They were recruited by the MOIS in the mid-1990s and used as assets against the opposition before launching the ‘Iran-Interlink’ website explicitly under Tehran’s orders, Martin adds.

“The MOIS resorts to character assassination against lawmakers and reporters who hold positive views of the Iranian opposition, aiming to silence their voices,” he said.

Martin cited a 2014 report by iSight Partners which uncovered a three-year espionage campaign, originating in Iran, that used an elaborate scheme involving a fabricated news agency, fake social media accounts and bogus journalist identities to deceive victims in the United States and elsewhere.

Martin went on to cite other fake news sites operated by Khodabandeh such as mesconult.com are hosted by Ravand Cybertech, an entity run by the Iranian regime directly. It is not a coincidence that postings from these sites are often cited in Iranian state-controlled media as “news sources.”

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American scholar, author and U.S. foreign policy specialist and president of the International American Council, also wrote about the more direct introduction of Iranian regime lobbyists and operatives into the U.S. and Europe on the ground to push the regime’s agenda.

“Many argue that some of Iran’s lobbyists work in plain sight and had access to top officials at the White House and State Department; they lobbied for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, top state sponsor of terrorism, and subsequently lifting of sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), while demonizing Iranian-Americans who called for firmness against Iran’s ruling clerics and ayatollahs,” he writes.

“Cutting to the chase, it seems that the lobbyists and advocates for the Islamic Republic, next dismiss anyone suggesting the US should respond to this appalling conduct with firmness as a warmonger. But nobody appears to want, or ask for, armed conflict with Iran, so that is not an option,” he adds.

The disconnect between the claims of the Iranian regime’s lobbyists and supporters and the reality of the day grows larger every day. Unfortunately, those who are capable of setting a new standard for disagreeing with the regime even on a subtle level seem to cave to the Iran lobby’s arguments.

One example was a visit by a delegation from Sweden’s self-declared “first feminist government” which folded and enshrouded themselves in head coverings as they met with Hassan Rouhani in a blatant blow to Iran’s feminist movement, which has been under severe attacks by the mullahs.

UN Watch declared in a press release its concern over Sweden’s failure to promote a “gender equality perspective.”

In doing so, the Swedish female politicians ignored the recent appeal by Iranian women’s right activists who urged Europeans female politicians “to stand for [their] own dignity” and refuse to wear the hijab when visiting Iran.

“European female politicians are hypocrites,” says one activist. “Because they stand up with French Muslim women and condemn the burkini ban—because they think compulsion is bad—but when it happens to Iran, they just care about money.”

The scene in Tehran on Saturday was also a sharp contrast to Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin’s feminist stance against Trump, in a viral tweet and then in a Guardian op-ed last week, in which she wrote that “the world need strong leadership for women’s rights.”

Linde “sees no conflict” between her government’s human rights policy and signing trade deals with an oppressive dictatorship that tortures prisoners, persecutes gays, and is a leading executioner of minors, UN Watch declared.

We can only hope that world media attention is more tightly focused on the real machinations going on with the Iran lobby and its MOIS taskmasters.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Lobby Echo Chamber Going Full Bore to Support Iran Regime

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Iran Lobby Echo Chamber Going Full Bore to Support Iran Regime

Iran Lobby Echo Chamber Going Full Bore to Support Iran Regime

With the Trump White House announcing a series of new sanctions aimed at officials of the Revolutionary Guard Corps for the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile program, as well as contemplating broad new sanctions stemming from a possible designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, the Iran lobby and supporters of the regime have launched an all-out PR effort to prop up the faltering regime.

In a campaign similar to the infamous “echo chamber” of academics and advocates furiously penning editorials and giving interviews to sympathetic media outlets, the Iran lobby is trying anything to deflect attention on the regime’s militancy and instead claim anything aimed at punishing the regime is somehow racist or a prelude to armed conflict.

But the effort to come to the aid of the mullahs in Tehran isn’t just limited to the usual assorted Iran sympathizers as European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and spoke “at length” about the Iran nuclear deal according to Reuters.

Mogherini helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, along with diplomats from Iran, the United States and other major world powers. The deal curbed Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief said Reuters.

Trump has said the deal is terrible, and Flynn put Iran “on notice” last week for test-firing a ballistic missile, raising the prospect of spiking tensions between Iran and the United States.

Since the deal, Mogherini has visited Tehran while the regime commenced a series of ghastly executions of men and women; none of which were protested by the EU.

Even Russia Today weighed in as well by publishing an opinion piece by John Wright, an outspoken supporter of the Iran nuclear deal, who took the Trump administration to task for focusing on Iran instead of the world’s “number one terrorist state” in his mind—Saudi Arabia.

“The Trump administration’s consistent and ongoing demonization of Iran flies in the face of reality in which Iran has stood, alongside Syria, Russia, the Kurds, and the Iranian-backed Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, as a pillar against the very same Salafi-jihadist terrorism that poses a threat to the American people,” Wright said in a splendid example of mimicking the very same messages consistently uttered by the National Iranian American Council and other Iran lobby members.

Wright went on to hammer Saudi Arabia, while essentially excusing the vile acts of ISIS and downplaying anything the Iranian regime has done by comparison. His logic or lack thereof defies commonsense and represent the intellectual vacuum that characterizes much of the Iran lobby’s arguments.

In a more flimsy example of casting doubt on efforts to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization, the Chicago Tribune offered up a story with the dubious headline of “Warnings for White House on terror designation for Iran Revolutionary Guard” and goes on to hint at warnings from defense officials, but neglects to mention anyone specifically, nor offer a single quote against the planned designation.

It does however rehash the discredited story of the terror designation of Iranian dissident groups in a message point repeatedly endlessly by the Iran lobby as part of the smear campaign against opposition groups.

Another Iran lobby message point was trolled out by William O. Beeman, an anthropology professor and not a national security expert, who nevertheless offered up the same silly arguments that folks like Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of NIAC put forth, in an editorial.

“The tiny issue on which the US objection rests is whether the Iranian missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran says: no! The United States (and Israel) say ‘maybe,’ because they can’t know for sure whether this is the case. In the latest missile test, the missile blew up, so no one can say one way or the other,” he writes.

Beeman should stick to teaching about dead civilizations.

The issue of ballistic missiles is not a “tiny” one. Iran’s development of longer-range missiles based on illicitly acquired North Korean designs has produced missiles with over a 2,000-km range, giving it intercontinental reach. Tie this with the development of solid fuel boosters and you now approach the threshold weight necessary for a nuclear weapon. But put that aside, it is more than enough thrust and range for a chemical or biological weapon to be aimed at Eastern Europe, North Africa and India and China.

The Economist went even further claiming that Trump’s punitive actions against the Iranian regime were actually helping it.

Most incredulous of all was the opening line from the piece which claimed “the ritual chants of ‘Death to America’ had grown fainter in recent years. The feverish crowds had thinned. Some demonstrators seemed to wave Uncle Sam banners less to jeer America than to cheer it. Yet thanks to Donald Trump this year’s annual rally to commemorate Islamic Revolution Day on February 10th in Tehran looks set to be one of Iran’s biggest.”

The Economist fails to mention that the regime can ramp up attendance any time it needs to with help from the Basij paramilitaries to round up supporters under threat of beatings and the chants aimed at America have not stopped and will never stop under the mullahs.

It also makes the same mistake all media make who do not understand the dynamics of the mullahs’ hold over Iran by continuing to make a distinction between “hardliners” and “moderates” in Iran’s government.

Let’s set the record straight: There are no moderates in Iran’s government. Moderation within the regime is akin to making distinctions between the SS and Brown shirts in Hitler’s Reich. It’s only variations on the theme of extremism. One could say that compared to ISIS, Al-Qaeda looks like a Boy Scout troop.

The argument that Trump only emboldens the “hardliners” is a self-fulfilling prophecy since the hardliners have been and always will be in control of Iran.

Michael Tomlinson

Possible Designation of IRGC as Terror Organization Huge Step Forward

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Possible Designation of IRGC as Terror Organization Huge Step Forward

Possible Designation of IRGC as Terror Organization Huge Step Forward

The Trump White House’s deliberations over designating the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is a monumental and long overdue step on the road to finally blocking the expansion of extremism in the region.

For too long, past administrations have placed sanctions on aspects of the IRGC, including specific leaders and even units within it such as the Quds Force, but none had been willing to seriously raise the question about designating the IRGC as a whole.

For the U.S., this administration’s team is making a series of calculations based on the fundamental truth about the IRGC, which is that to solve the puzzle of rising Islamic extremism, you cannot nibble at the edges, but have to attack it at its center.

The White House is likely to move more quickly on the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which could be less of a challenge to implement, one person familiar with the discussions said. It was unclear when a decision would be made on that designation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Revolutionary Guard is the Iranian regime’s elite military unit and reports directly to top mullah, Ali Khamenei, with a command separate from Iran’s traditional military. It was established following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and over the past decade has also grown to dominate Iran’s economy, with holdings in property, oil and gas and telecommunications. U.S. officials estimate the IRGC controls as much as 50% of Iran’s economy.

The Trump administration last week imposed new sanctions on more than two dozen Iranian individuals and entities in retaliation for the country’s latest ballistic missile test launch, in January.

Taking the step of designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization would give the U.S. further latitude to target the IRGC’s finances and companies, which would affect large sectors of Iranian regime’s economy.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, an expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who supports the move to designate the IRGC, said it would go beyond efforts by the Bush administration to more narrowly target the military group’s illicit trade and funding for terrorism.

“The net effect would be more significant. It would cast the net more widely,” he said.

According to the Journal, there is broad and bipartisan support within Congress to designate the IRGC and levy additional sanctions much to the chagrin of the Iran lobby which went into full-defense mode and scrambled to block this latest in a string of moves aimed at the regime.

Loyal regime ally, the National Iranian American Council issued talking points opposing the designation which was a verbatim regurgitation of past defenses of the regime and offered nothing new; hanging its hat on the sole prospect that the nuclear deal would be jeopardized.

The move to designate the IRGC strikes at the very heart of the economic engine that fuels the mullahs rule and expansion of terrorism in the region.

Without access to the ill-gotten gains they secure from the industries controlled by the IRGC, the mullahs could not support their proxy wars, could not upgrade its military and could not continue to funnel cash to the Assad regime in Syria or keep Hezbollah afloat.

As pointed at in a piece for the Daily Caller, targeting the IRGC is the culmination of a long series of militant actions by the IRGC that has resulted in loss of U.S. lives.

Iran and elements of the IRGC were implicated several times in assisting in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress a year ago, “I know the total number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that were killed by Iranian activities, and the number has been recently quoted as about 500.”

It could also cripple the Iranian regime to a point where the prospect of true democratic reforms could finally emerge.

Of course all of this is only hopeful speculation at this point, but the prospect of aggressive action against the regime after years of trying to appease the mullahs bore no fruit is a welcome turnaround for critics of the regime and should provide a valuable morale boost to the long struggle against the regime waged by Iranian dissident groups.

 

Shahriar Kia, a political analyst and member of the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, also known as the MEK), wrote in the Hill that the Kayhan daily, the known Khamenei mouthpiece, revealed the Iranian regime’s terrified status quo, describing this as a “historic turn.”

“There are times when developments take such an unprecedented pace, making any forecasting about the future quite difficult,” the piece reads.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a recent TV interview Tehran’s foreign policy will face serious crises with Donald Trump coming to the White House.

Ali Khorram, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official, suggested the mullahs’ regime should use “common sense” and keep a low profile during such times.

The state-run Iran daily wrote, “This measure by Iran provides an excuse for Trump to take actions against Iran, increasing his intention to disrupt the status quo resulting from the Iran nuclear deal.”

That has to be pretty disturbing to them.

Laura Carnahan

The News Keeps Getting Worse for Iran Regime and Lobby

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The News Keeps Getting Worse for Iran Regime and Lobby

The News Keeps Getting Worse for Iran Regime and Lobby

To say things aren’t looking so great for the Iranian regime would be stating the obvious at the moment. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the regime suffered setbacks in Syria requiring the intervention of Russia and at home where gross mismanagement of the economy and rampant corruption coupled with plunging prices for oil sank the Iranian economy further in the red.

Protests mounted at home requiring even more brutal crackdowns, sending another spiral of discontent against the mullahs spreading out like ripples in a pond with a stone tossed in it, but now the mullahs are facing the full brunt of the end of Obama’s appeasement era.

The discussion of designating the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization can be the most effective act if undertaken by the new administration so far and if true, would be a welcome boon to the Iranian dissident movement that have been fighting the IRGC for decades.

According to Reuters officials said several U.S. government agencies have been consulted about such a proposal, which if implemented would add to measures the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC.

The IRGC is by far Iran’s most powerful security entity, which also has control over large stakes in Iran’s economy and huge influence in its political system.

Reuters has not seen a copy of the proposal, which could come in the form of an executive order directing the State Department to consider designating the IRGC as a terrorist group. It is unclear whether Trump would sign such an order.

Some of Trump’s more hawkish advisors in the White House have been urging him to increase sanctions on Iran since his administration began to take shape. After tightening sanctions against Iran last week in response to a ballistic missile test, White House officials said the measures were an “initial” step.

The United States has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people for affiliations with the IRGC. In 2007, the U.S. Treasury designated the IRGC’s Quds Force, its elite unit in charge of its operations abroad, “for its support of terrorism,” and has said it is Iranian regime’s “primary arm for executing its policy of supporting terrorist and insurgent groups.”

A designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would potentially have much broader implications, including for the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and the United States and other major world powers.

Because the IRGC controls huge swathes of the Iranian economy through a complex web of shell companies, the designation as a terrorist organization could expose almost all of the Iranian economy to potential sanctions, separate and apart from the nuclear deal. This includes industries such as petroleum, telecommunications, healthcare, aviation and agriculture.

Officials said that rather than tearing up the nuclear agreement, the White House might turn instead toward punishing Iranian regime for its support for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and some Shiite forces in Iraq, as well as covert support for Shiites who oppose the Sunni regime in Bahrain, and cyberattacks on Saudi and other Gulf Arab targets.

Top mullahs Ali Khamenei took his turn to try and blast President Trump in remarks on Tuesday saying the U.S. leader had exposed his country’s “political, economic, ethical and social corruption.”

“We are grateful to this gentleman who has come, grateful because he made it easy for us and showed the U.S.’s real face,” Khamenei said referring to Trump.

On Tuesday White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Mr. Trump would take action “as he sees fit” and “will not take anything off the table.”

“Iran is kidding itself if they don’t realize that there’s a new president in town,” Spicer said.

Middle East security analyst Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council told VOA Persian’s NewsHour program on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s approach toward Iran was very different from that of its predecessor.

“Under the Obama administration, Iran had enormous latitude politically and economically in terms of reaping benefits from the nuclear deal,” said Berman, who serves as senior vice president of the Washington-based conservative research institute.”Under the Trump White House, it is not known whether the nuclear deal is off the table completely, but it is very clear that the new administration is going to pursue a more confrontational approach [toward implementing it].”

Berman based his assessment of the new U.S. policy on what he called the Trump national security team’s “remarkable … commonality of views” about Iran.

“From Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to national security adviser Michael Flynn, there is very deep skepticism about Iranian intentions and whether or not it’s a good idea to continue the nuclear deal, and there’s very deep apprehension about the destabilizing role that Iran can play in the Persian Gulf region,” Berman said. “So I think you see a much more realistic view of Iran beginning to take shape.”

The unpredictability of the new U.S. administration’s future plans may be the motivating factor in the decision by the Iranian regime to hastily scrap a planned missile launch of a longer-range ballistic missile.

The New York Post editorial board attributed the last-minute change to the regime blinking in the face of the tough talk coming from the White House.

“Fox News reports that new satellite imagery, verified by US officials, shows Iran has abruptly removed a new missile that was being prepared for launch as recently as Friday.

“It was a long-range Safir missile — a class that Tehran last launched into space two years ago, and that uses the same components as those needed for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“The images showed a flurry of activity, including a host of visitors, on the launchpad Feb. 3, the day the missile was first spotted.

“Then, on Tuesday, the missile was gone,” the Post said.

The tough response from Trump was “unlike anything Tehran saw in eight years under President Barack Obama — whose State Department routinely issued reports critical of Iran, but turned a blind eye to the Islamic Republic’s nefarious behavior, not to mention its repeated violations of the sweetheart nuclear deal.”

“It’s a sign that for Iran, the days of wine and roses — and blind-eye treatment — are over. And perhaps an even more welcome sign that tough talk, combined with tough action, really does work,” the Post added.

We couldn’t agree more.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Put on Notice by Trump Administration

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Iran Regime Put on Notice by Trump Administration

Iran Regime Put on Notice by Trump Administration

At long last we have finally crossed the Rubicon after over two decades of continually trying to appease the Iranian regime, as the Trump administration turned its attention to the militant acts of the Iranian regime with a stern warning that Iran was put “on notice” that the U.S. would no longer tolerate acts such as the test launching of a ballistic missile.

A statement from Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, indicating that Obama’s less confrontational approach toward Iran was now over.

“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he told reporters in his first appearance in the White House press briefing room.`

Three senior U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a range of options, including economic sanctions, was being considered and that a broad review was being conducted of the U.S. posture toward Iran, according to Reuters.

One official said the intent of Flynn’s message was to make clear the administration would not be “shy or reticent” toward Tehran.

“We are in the process of evaluating the strategic options and the framework for how we want to approach these issues,” the official said. “We do not want to be premature or rash or take any action that would foreclose options or unnecessarily contribute to a negative response.”

The stern warning came after reports surfaced that the intended target of attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea was not Saudi coalition ships, but rather U.S. Navy warships.

The Saudi government confirmed on Monday that Houthis had attacked one of its frigates patrolling the Red Sea near Yemen, killing two crew members and wounding three others.

Ynet News notes the Houthis posted a video of the attack, which appears to show an anti-ship missile hitting a ship, while rebels shout, “Death to America! Death to Israel!” in the background.

On Tuesday afternoon, Fox News reported that the Pentagon believes the attack was indeed carried out by suicide boat, and the intended target was actually an American warship. The Houthis launched missiles at U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea in October, in the same general area as this new attack.

“U.S. defense analysts believe those behind the attack either thought the bomber was striking an American warship or that this was a ‘dress rehearsal’ similar to the attack on the USS Cole,” said one Pentagon official, per Fox News.

Trump and Saudi Arabia’s ruler, King Salman, spoke by phone on Sunday and were described by the White House as agreeing on the importance of enforcing the deal and “addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities.”

Trump has frequently criticized the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, calling the agreement weak and ineffective.

While campaigning in September, then-candidate Trump also vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy would be “shot out of the water” if he is elected.

The fact that the warning came—not from the State Department—but directly from the White House briefing room with a senior cabinet official is seen as a show of how serious Trump’s position is now on the issue of Iran.

For critics of the Iran deal, the declaration is a sign of Trump’s distancing it’s administration from the past years of appeasement and marks a return to normalcy in the diplomatic approach to the Iranian regime that the previous three presidential administrations pursued.

Flynn’s comments came on the same day that Republicans in the House announced plans for legislation targeting Iran’s support for “terrorism, human rights abuses and ballistic missile program.” Among other steps, the measure would impose new sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and against people who “knowingly aid” its missile program. Similar legislation was previously introduced in the Senate.

The legislative action has been called for repeatedly by Iranian dissident groups who have urged measures to restrain the IRGC which carries out much of the regime’s most militant and violent actions.

Flynn said the launch was a violation of a United Nations resolution passed shortly after the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers was reached.

“The Obama administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions — including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” Flynn said.

Resolution 2231 calls on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Michael Tomlinson

Iranian Regime Keeps Pushing Extremism In Spite of Controversy

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Iranian Regime Keeps Pushing Extremism In Spite of Controversy

Iranian Regime Keeps Pushing Extremism In Spite of Controversy

While fierce debate rages over President Trump’s executive orders on immigration from seven nations with ties to terrorism, including Iran and Syria, the Iranian regime is using this as a distraction while it continues its efforts to keep pushing its extremist actions across the region.

Chief among them was a resumption of ballistic missile test launches in violation of existing restrictions by the U.S. and United Nations. The launch, which took place at a site more than 130 miles east of Tehran, is Iran’s first real test of the Trump administration.

The missile was tracked flying southward 650 miles before exploding when its reentry vehicle failed, according to officials who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on intelligence.

The missile has been tested before, officials said, most recently in July 2016, according to the Los Angeles Times.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday that the administration was aware the test took place, but wouldn’t provide additional information.

“We’re looking into that,” he said. “We’re aware that Iran fired that missile. We’re looking into the exact nature of it, and I’ll try to have more for you later.”

Christopher Harmer, a military analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a nonpartisan public policy group in Washington, said that it’s impossible to know if Tehran conducted the test as a response to the president’s action, but that the test also serves as propaganda.

“Iran is always working on every aspect of its missile program: better guidance, more payload capacity, and better reliability,” he said. “They test often so it’s difficult to say for sure whether this is a response to the travel ban, but the timing is suspect.”

Trump, as a presidential candidate, was deeply critical of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling it “the worst deal ever negotiated.”

U.N. Resolution 2231, passed shortly after the nuclear deal was signed, calls on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

The U.N. will now determine whether the launch was a violation at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to be held Tuesday.

Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Iran for the missile test.

“No longer will Iran be given a pass for its repeated ballistic missile violations, continued support of terrorism, human rights abuses and other hostile activities that threaten international peace and security,” Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said in a written statement.

President Trump on Sunday spoke with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, a conversation in which the two “agreed on the importance of rigorously enforcing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and of addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities,” the White House said in a statement.

A ballistic missile launch could potentially fall under “destabilizing regional activities.”

The launch also came a day before Jordan’s King Abdullah arrived in Washington for meetings with Vice President Pence and Defense Secretary Mattis as the administration ramped up meetings with Iran’s neighbors to forge a consensus on dealing with the Iranian regime.

The ballistic missile launch wasn’t the end of Iran’s aggressions as Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi warship in the Red Sea Monday killing two sailors and wounding two others according to Fox News.

The Saudi frigate, Al Madinah, was conducting routine operations in the southern Red Sea when the attack occurred.

In October, U.S. Navy warships came under missile attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the same area of the southern Red Sea just north of the Bab al Mandab Strait.

For the first time in history, a U.S. destroyer successfully shot down incoming enemy missiles using SM-2 missiles in the October attack.

Days later Tomahawk cruise missile launched from the USS Nitze destroyed the Houthi radar installations responsible for firing on the U.S. warships.

The Iranian kept up its loud propaganda efforts by issuing official statements saying it would stop using the U.S. dollar in its official statements; an and ultimately futile gesture.

The decision was announced by Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif during a television interview on the evening of January 29 and, according to the paper, is due to take effect from the start of the new fiscal year on 21 March. It will affect all official financial and foreign exchange reports.

No doubt the move was aimed at making a response to the visa controversy, but if this was the extent of the Iranian regime’s response, it clearly demonstrates how feeble and weak it is in protesting the decision.

It also underscores the fact that the Iranian regime is already excluded from accessing U.S. currency exchanges as part of existing sanctions placed for the regime’s role in supporting terrorism.

Michael Tomlinson

Time for the NIAC to Pack It Up

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Time for the NIAC to Pack It Up

Time for the NIAC to Pack It Up

The National Iranian American Council was born out of an idea hatched by Trita Parsi to develop a US-based group that could serve as an effective lobbying force for the interests of the Iranian regime. It could help provide “cover” for the mullahs by pushing a narrative seeking to reshape the public image of the Iranian regime.

It did so through editorials and press releases and through the use of NIAC staffers as so-called Iranian “experts” to news media. The intelligentsia and academia were regaled with lofty tales of how Iranian regime could be a friend to the US instead of an enemy and how the intractable problems of the Middle East could be solved through a moderate and willing Iranian partner.

The NIAC became part of the “echo chamber” created by the Obama administration to help push that narrative as it sought a nuclear deal with the mullahs in Tehran. NIAC staff such as Reza Marashi and Tyler Cullis obligingly offered up these fantasies even as Iran mullahs essentially set the stage for the Syrian civil war by jumping in to prop up the Assad regime.

The NIAC deepened its efforts by creating NIAC Action, a direct lobbying arm so it could knock on the doors of Congressmen and Senators and pressure them into supporting a badly flawed nuclear deal and promise them political cover by offering to say “Iranian-Americans” supported it.

Even as the death toll mounted by the thousands in Syria at the hands of Iranian forces and the barrels of Iranian guns and refugees flooded into Europe by the millions, the NIAC was resolutely pushing ahead to preserve the deal by blaming Saudi Arabia and other enemies of Iran for these problems.

Against the dubious backdrop of midnight flights of pallets loaded with cash in exchange for American hostages, the NIAC still kept at the narrative, ignoring the risk to Iranian-Americans and other dual nationals being arrested in Iran at an astonishing rate and Hassan Rouhani’s flat out refusal to recognize dual nationalities.

While the NIAC argued for loosening of restrictions to allow the freer flow of cash to Iran, the regime cracked down even harder on dissent at home with over 3,000 executions in four years and arrests of journalists, students, artists, bloggers and dissidents by the scores.

Even the US news media were getting the idea that NIAC did not have much to offer being apologists for the Iranian regime every time anything went wrong as NIAC staffers found less ink and air time on mainstream media and found themselves relegated to self-publishing blogs and fringe websites more prone to fake news than real news.

The election of Donald Trump and the sweep of Republicans into both houses of Congress put an even bigger damper on NIAC’s prospects to help the Iranian regime any more, which raises the most logical question: Is it time for the NIAC to close shop?

The question is not just rhetorical, but should prompt a serious discussion among supporters of the NIAC and its donors. What role will the NIAC play in a Trump presidency?

The same question must be vexing Parsi and his colleagues since we’ve seen a noticeable shift in their public comments on items. Instead of slavishly towing the party line of the mullahs in Tehran, the NIAC now has been busy commenting on issues related to Trump’s immigration proposes.

Some might argue that these topics should be the more traditional and appropriate topics for support and debate by an organization putatively claiming to support Iranian-Americans.

Unfortunately, the shift has less to do with genuine and sincere attention to a legitimate issue, but probably rather a need to justify the continued existence of NIAC.

One benchmark of that imperiled future will be the NIAC’s Bay Area fundraiser scheduled for February 12, 2017. The NIAC website states that the proceeds will be used “to support immediate efforts to combat discrimination, support civil rights, protect the US-Iran Nuclear Deal, and prevent war.”

Given the NIAC’s track record, virtually all the funds will be used to preserve the Iranian regime’s interest? Parsi and the NIAC have no real interest in the concerns and issues facing Iranian-Americans. They are more concerned about all facets of the Iranian regime and how to keep maintaining support for it. The NIAC’s checklist is absurdly limited given the state of the world:

  • Preserve the Iran nuclear deal so Iranian regime does not suffer renewed sanctions;
  • Oppose any new or re-imposition of sanctions on Iran;
  • Denounce and defend any accusation against the Iranian regime for sponsoring terror or human rights abuses;
  • Tie any effort to rein in Iran as a pathway to war and empowering “hardliners” in Iran; and
  • Keep the money flowing to Tehran and the mullah’s coffers at all costs.

These should not be the priorities of any group concerned with Iranian-American issues. They are the concerns only of an organization dedicated to doing the bidding of the mullahs in Tehran.

It’s time for the NIAC to go away and for a legitimate group to rise in its place to be a true advocate for Iranian-Americans and not a mouthpiece for Tehran.

Michael Tomlinson

Obama White House Logs Disclose Access to Iran Lobbyists

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Obama White House Logs Disclose Access to Iran Lobbyists

President Barack Obama makes Thanksgiving Day phone calls from the Oval Office to U.S. troops stationed around the world, Nov. 24, 2016. The President’s Coast Guard military aide, LCDR Ginny Nadolny is at right.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The Washington Free Beacon disclosed that a former Iranian regime official and a leader in the Iran lobby enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House under the Obama administration.

The two were hosted at the White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates, according to the Free Beacon.

Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of the regime’s national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to the Iranian government, met with Obama administration officials a stunning 33 times, according to recently updated visitor logs.

Sources familiar with the nature of the meetings told the Washington Free Beacon that both Parsi and Mousavian helped the White House craft its pro-Iran messaging and talking points that helped lead to the nuclear agreement with Iran. These efforts were part of a larger pro-Iran deal “echo chamber” led by senior Obama administration officials who were tasked with misleading Congress about the nature of the deal.

Mousavian, who also served as Iran’s spokesperson during negotiations with the international community on the Iran deal, visited with White House National Security Council official Robert Malley, who advised the former president about the Middle East and the Islamic State terror group.

“Mousavian was Iran’s ambassador to Germany back in the 1990s, when that embassy was the central node of Iran’s European terror network and those in Germany were murdering dissidents in Berlin,” one veteran Iran analyst who frequently works with Congress on the issue told the Free Beacon. “Later he came to the U.S., where he’s being paid for with tens of thousands of dollars from the Ploughshares Fund, which funded the Ben Rhodes echo chamber.”

Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, a group tied to the broader Iran lobbying movement and tied to the Obama White House that helped spearhead a pro-Iran narrative, met with several senior Obama administration officials during dozens of visits to the White House, the logs show.

This included private, one-on-one meetings with Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who helmed what he described as the White House’s pro-Iran deal “echo chamber,” as well as meetings with Malley and Colin Kahl, national security adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. Parsi also met with the White House NSC’s director for Iran, its senior director, legislative liaisons, and public engagement officials, according to sources familiar with the nature of these meetings.

In one instance, Parsi was signed into the White House by Solomon Tarlin, a West Wing intern and supporter of the Middle East advocacy group J Street.

Free Beacon quoting an expert on Pentagon writes: “Talk about letting the fox into the hen house. Letting the head of an organization whose foreign policy positions are indistinguishable from the Islamic Republic more than 30 times would be analogous to letting the Soviet Union’s chief lobbyist help guide policy during the Cold War.”

“During the Bush administration, Parsi thought nothing of dining with [Former Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his private emails, released as part of a court-ordered discovery process, show that he lied to the U.S. press and coached Iranian officials in order to weaken sanctions and promote the Islamic Republic,” The expert said.

The visitor’s logs reveal the depth of Parsi’s involvement in building the false narrative of the Iran nuclear deal and also may explain why the Obama administration was quick to appease the mullahs in Tehran, by forgoing linking such important issues as ballistic missiles, human rights and terrorism.

With the incoming Trump administration, it is almost assured that Parsi’s access to the White House and key advisors has been reduced to zero, which explains why Parsi now has taken to authoring editorials in a tedious effort to influence a monumental shift in American foreign policy.

In many ways Parsi efforts are more akin to the Little Dutch Boy sticking his finger in dike than his previous august position as White House visitor.

In a piece for Foreign Policy, Parsi trotted out the same, tired talking points: Iran is good. Saudi Arabia is bad. Hard liners will be empowered in Iran. Trump’s cabinet picks are war mongers. Iran does not support proxies.

Parsi’s efforts to try and convince everyone that Iran does not fund and control Hezbollah or Shiite militias in Iraqi or Houthi rebels in Yemen is pathetic and patently false. All anyone has to do is follow the trail of cash and arms from Tehran to all parts of the Middle East and you can see how the Iranian regime sits at the center of the proxy wars in the region.

But Parsi’s efforts may be waning as he and his Iran lobby colleagues shift chaotically from issue to issue in an effort to keep up with the wide ranging agenda of the Trump administration which called for a moratorium on Syrian refugees pending verification of their backgrounds in a nod to the Islamic extremist terror attacks taking place across Europe in Paris, Nice, Brussels and Berlin.

A new poll revealed in the Wall Street Journal that support for Hassan Rouhani among the Iranian people has plummeted as years of war and economic stagnation coupled with unrelenting human rights abuses had sapped his favorability.

The survey results paint a picture of an Iranian public wary and skeptical about the economic benefits they thought it would bring as a result of the Iran Deal.

Conducted in December for the University of Maryland, the survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 Iranians and provides a gauge of public opinion in a country where independent polling is rare.

“Rouhani’s popularity is taking a hit primarily because he is perceived to have failed to deliver on his campaign promises,” said the president and chief executive of Toronto-based company which conducted the survey on the school’s behalf.

About 51% said the country’s economic conditions were worsening, up from 43% in June. Almost three-quarters of the Iranians surveyed said the deal hadn’t improved people’s living conditions.

With the presidential election looming in May, it is almost assured that the regime will once again rig the election to deliver a candidate in lock-step with the mullahs’ policies and those of top mullah Ali Khmenei.

Michael Tomlinson

Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

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Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

Iran Regime Suffering Setbacks on Multiple Fronts

The start of the Trump administration is coinciding with a tougher time for the Iranian regime as it begins to suffer setbacks large and small, causing anxiety amongst the mullahs in Tehran as they try to figure out how to deal with President Trump.

Their initial comments to the new president were cautious and low key as Iranian regime Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters on Monday that the Islamic state had no immediate pronouncement on Trump.

Ghasemi says that it’s “too soon to assess him and analyze his remarks, stance and the framework of his viewpoints.”

Ghasemi’s remarks mark the first official comment from Iran on Trump since his inauguration as the 45th American president.

That lack of response may be calculated to minimize the risk of antagonizing Trump or be placed in the infamous target of his tweeting habits which have laid low his political opponents, but for Iran the news to start the week only looked worse.

In the Syrian peace talks that began in Astana, Kazakhstan, Syrian rebel groups have rejected a plan that allows the Iranian regime to play a role in monitoring the ceasefire.

The proposal for a trilateral ceasefire commission, overseen jointly by the talks’ sponsors, is the most specific new measure set out in a draft communique the Russians hope to release on Tuesday, the second and closing day of the talks.

The Syrian fighting groups believe militia linked to Iran, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are – along with Bashar al-Assad’s government – systematically breaching the ceasefire agreed on 29 December. The Syrian fighters believe Iranian regime, as perpetrators of innumerable ceasefire breaches, cannot credibly monitor or enforce a ceasefire, according to the Guardian.

As well as the ceasefire commission proposal, the leaked draft communique also broadly supports the existing UN talks process and calls for joint action to defeat Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria.

The fact that Syrian rebel groups actively engaged in fighting Syrian and Iranian regime military units have a seat at the table at last marks a significant step forward in diminishing Iranian influence in the long conflict.

The Syrian civil war erupted over opposition to harsh crackdowns by the Assad regime on the Syrian people and gaining momentum when Iranian regime opted to back Assad with Hezbollah fighters and cash to prop up the regime. The conflict escalated when the Iranian regime recruited Afghan mercenaries, Iraqi Shiite militias and eventually brought Russia into the civil war.

The prospect of peace talks moving forward that pushes the Iranian regime out of the way must be causing severe handwringing in Tehran, but more bad news came for Iran as Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic state in violation of international bans on such behavior.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, or DPSU, announced late last week that it had seized at least 17 boxes filled with missile components bound for Iran, according to IHS Jane’s.

“The DPSU said that, during an inspection of the aircraft on 19 January, its personnel had found 17 boxes with no accompanying documents, which the aircraft’s crew said contained an aircraft repair kit,” according to the report. “Three boxes contained components that were believed to be for a Fagot anti-tank guided missile system, the rest contained aircraft parts.”

Days after this finding, the DPSU said that it had confirmed the missile components were destined for Iran’s Fagot system.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said that Iran has been illicitly moving such weapons for quite some time.

“This isn’t the first time Iran has gotten caught red handed smuggling weapons with false manifests, for example, in 2010 in Nigeria,” Rubin said. “The question is how often does Iran get away with such smuggling and for what purpose? After all, if the weaponry is legal, there’s no reason for lying. If it’s not, Iran is violating international agreements. Either way, only fools and secretaries of state would trust Iran to uphold its agreements.”

While many countries around the world listened with concern to Trump’s protectionist inaugural address, Gulf Arab officials appear optimistic. In Gulf Arab eyes, that involves above all checking what they see as a surge of Iranian support for paramilitary allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon and for fellow Shi’ite Muslims in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing Eastern Province.

There have been tensions over Syria, where Obama dismissed Gulf Arab urgings to give more aid to rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, who has survived thanks to Iranian backing.

“Perception is important: Trump does not look like the kind of guy who will bend towards Iran or anyone else,” said Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a veteran Saudi commentator.

“If he behaves as he says, then we will see another Ronald Reagan, someone all the forces in the region will take seriously. That’s what we have missed in the past eight years, unfortunately.”

We can only hope that the Gulf States are right about the new president.

Michael Tomlinson